Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars

Big RTS franchise gets equally big upgrades.

What's the game about:Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars is the next entry in the storied Command & Conquer real-time strategy collection. It's the first true C&C game in seven years and from everything that we've seen so far (primarily a couple of trailers and an early engine demo) it's looking good this early. The Global Defense Initiative and the Brotherhood of Nod are back waging war over precious Tiberium, an element which threatens the very Earth. A trailer mentions a third faction briefly, but EA is keeping silent on it -- for now.

What's new at E3: Everything, frankly. With the game only recently unveiled, the behind-closed-doors demo at E3 presented our first opportunity to check it out. EA showed two quick trailers and demoed a very early in-game engine (there was no user interface -- just units moving around and blowing up a city).

What we like: It looks incredible. The GDI units we saw in action looked amazing, the water effects around the aircraft carrier looked superb and the explosions and damage being done to the buildings looked incredible. The voice-acting on the units is early, but it already sounds pretty sharp. Watching smoke blow through the town that units just leveled was an incredible moment.

What we dislike: The in-game engine is really early, but it looked great. There was no user interface, so instead of watching a demo being played, it felt like we were watching a movie. The lack of UI is indicative of just how early C&C3 is -- and that makes us sad.

It's early, but it's looking good. Real good.

NOTE: The above ranking is based on this game's showing at E3 only, and is not a review score for the game. We simply are offering our gut reactions on what each publisher and developer chooses to show at E3, to help readers sift through the masses of upcoming game titles displayed at the show.